


Stiff Competition

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel and Gabriel (Supernatural) are Siblings, Competition, Competitive Dean Winchester, Competitive Gabriel, Established Strangers, Fluff, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, Lakes, M/M, Naked Dean, Reference to s12e11, Strangers to Lovers, Summer Vacation, These Tags Just Probably Made You Confused It Makes Sense I Promise, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Water Skiing, is that a tag?, lake, now it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 08:37:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11505699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: The hot guy, who Gabe nicknamed Hasselhoff because of his red swim trunks that only go up mid-thigh and his slender torso he makes up for in his arms, nearly comes into contact with a large rock. He veers to his left to avoid it—narrowly, might Cas add, because the water he picks up underneath his skis falls on Cas like a downpour in the middle of July. Worst of all, he’s grinning, completely destroying the sincerity behind the “Sorry!” he yells over both engines and the water.Cas spits out some of the salty lake with a determined stare. Two can play at this game.





	Stiff Competition

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I'm taking advantage of summertime while I can! It's great for a bunch of fan fic themes involving your otp. Although, when winter comes around, I'm tempted to write a snuggling-up-for-warmth-purposes-only fic. (;

 

Cas never thought his worst nightmare would come true on a lake in Northern California.

If he was competing against someone in an air-conditioned car and working brakes, he wouldn’t be as nervous. That, and his competitor’s face adds to the already sweat-inducing humidity sticking to his skin like syrup. He may as well be a pancake, because it doesn’t take much to flip him on his ass, be it his water skis or the hot guy next to him _on_ water skis.

“Ready, Cassie?” his brother Gabe yells over the engine. The driver of the adjacent ski boat revs his own enough to form friction ridges in the water, like a giant thumb branding its grooves into the lake, fanning out yards past the boats themselves before thinning out into the distance.

Cas makes the mistake of turning to said hot guy on the adjacent skis, who tosses him a wink after saying, with that deep sea voice of his, “Don’t worry, I won’t make you eat my waves.”

It’s an ill-timed joke when Cas’s attention is focused on the drawstring holding the guy’s swim trunks up. He tightens them like a martial artist securing his belt for the prizefight, and Cas gulps, forcibly tearing his gaze away from _that_ area, “Yeah… I guess,” Cas calls back, tightening his grip on the line, wondering how the hell this vacation became a low-budget _Fast and Furious_ movie on skis.

Oh yeah, because he decided to take a vacation with Gabe.

Sooner than later, both engines kick to life and then they’re off.

Granted Cas hasn’t steered a _bike_ properly in his twenty-some years on the earth, so it takes him a moment to balance himself. Gabe doesn’t make it easier when he goes a tad faster to keep up with the other boat. His skis start to slip beneath him like a banana peel. Cas uses all his weight to pull himself forward with the handlebar to bring his legs together again.

The guy driving the other boat, who Cas knows by his mop of brown hair, accelerates too, but only just slightly, as if testing Gabe. And if there’s one thing Cas knows Gabe doesn’t like is to be tested.

The hot guy, who Gabe nicknamed Hasselhoff because of his red swim trunks that only go up mid-thigh and his slender torso he makes up for in his arms, nearly comes into contact with a large rock. He veers to his left to avoid it—narrowly, might Cas add, because the water he picks up underneath his skis falls on Cas like a downpour in the middle of July. Worst of all, he’s grinning, completely destroying the sincerity behind the “Sorry!” he yells over both engines and the water.

Cas spits out some of the salty lake with a determined stare. Two can play at this game.

Cas clasps the handlebar even tighter. Then, he starts to dip his whole body to his left, picking up water on the right to send it onto Hasselhoff. But he doesn’t stop there. He keeps leaning over until he’s only a few inches from meeting the water, getting the most he can out of it.

“You’re a terrible person!” he can hear Hasselhoff shout, only because Cas can’t seem to get back up. His body keeps leaning precariously closer to the water, like an unseen force is pushing him. (More like his untutored ego.) It doesn’t help that Gabe is picking up momentum again with the boat.

_Shit, shit, shit, abort!_

That’s the last thought he has before he slips under.

When he resurfaces, belly up due to his skis, he sees his and Gabe’s ski boat, still speeding down the river, toting the line with the handlebar. Cas scoffs, pushing his newly wet hair out of his face. Typical. He turns to the other boat to see Hasselhoff still attached to the back, whooping and hollering in victory as the boat makes a U-turn. Cas is too far out to see what’s probably a shit-eating grin on his face, but he does see something else as he rounds the corner.

Here he is thinking he lost the race, when Hasselhoff’s the real loser… having lost his swim trunks.

Needless to say, Hasselhoff’s face turns the color of his lost trunks to compensate as he yells, “Sammy! Toss me a towel!”

Even from a fair distance away still, Cas can hear the guy, Sammy, laughing his ass off. Cas can’t blame him, he thinks as the smirk returns to his face. Nothing like karma to come and bite someone in the ass, which, as Hasselhoff comes closer, Cas can see is an accurate statement. On his left cheek, Cas sees a tattoo depicting what looks like a bull riding machine. On top of it are four letters spelling “Larry” like magnets on a fridge.

Before Cas’s eyes can visit the front side of him, Hasselhoff is finally given a towel. “This is why I don’t let you drive the Impala,” he huffs as he wraps the fabric around him. He unhooks himself from his skis once the boat is at a complete standstill and hops onto it. “Help him up.”

Cas trades looks between the two men, still slightly dazed between the sight he was met with and the sun still burning his skin, before he realizes Hasselhoff is talking about him. Cas extends his arms out and lets himself be helped up.

Hasselhoff and Sam look to each other, and then to Cas—well, at least Sam does, since Hasselhoff seems too fascinated by the floorboard at the moment.

“Uh, hi,” Sam says, suppressing a grin that brings out his dimples as he hands Cas a spare towel. He’s handsome, long face, hair almost touching his shoulders. He’d be the perfect embodiment of a surfer dude if it wasn’t for those hazel green eyes. “We weren’t probably introduced. I’m Sam. This is my brother, Dean… who you’ve now been _very_ well acquainted with—”

“Oh shut up, Sam,” Dean gripes, snapping his head up at his brother.

“Hey, it’s not my fault you don’t try on swimwear before you buy them.”

“I told you, I have a weird waistline! Plus, changing rooms are _filthy._ I would never willingly expose my ass to those benches. Other people’s asses have touched those benches.”

“So you’d rather expose yourself here? In front of a potential suitor?”

Dean’s face looks nothing short of murder, although, he doesn’t look nearly as menacing with a polka-dot towel wrapped around his waist. Despite the blush coating Cas’s cheeks—because, _wait, so Hasselhoff thinks I’m Baywatch material, too?—_ he offers his own name, “Cas. And no, we weren’t properly introduced, because my older brother is a competitive asshole.”

“I hear that,” Sam scoffs, “last words I heard out of Dean when he saw you guys across the way were ‘Shut up and drive’. I felt like I was being held hostage on my own boat.”

Cas chuckles, turning his head to Dean, but before he can actually talk to him, the sound of a second engine rolls around and Gabe’s voice interjects, “Cas! Are you okay, little brother?”

“Yeah,” Cas says, throwing his arms out, “no thanks to you!”

“Alright,” Gabe says, skilled at this point in the art of ignoring anything Cas says, “I’ll go park the boat and we can pop open a beer. We deserve it after our win.”

“Hold on, wait a second,” Dean says, “clearly, _we_ won.”

Gabe tilts his head, intrigued. “Oh really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Cas fell off his skis. I demand a rematch.”

Dean matches Gabe’s crossed arms and hits him back with, “Fine. I can kick your ass any day.”

“How’s fifteen minutes? In case you need a bathroom break before you wet yourself,” Gabe snarks. Cas shakes his head to the Gods, wondering why it had to come to this.

“Bring it,” Dean snaps back. With that, Gabe speeds off toward the dinghys, leaving him to turn back to Cas with a shy smile, completely contrary to the front he supplied Gabe, or the one throughout the race. Cas thinks he likes this persona the best. “Sorry.”

Cas laughs despite the secondhand embarrassment, “Sorry? I should be _thanking_ you! I’ve been waiting for someone to tell him off for years.”

A smile breaks out across Dean’s face, lighting his emerald eyes. He’s even more gorgeous than Cas could see from a few yards away—like a neoclassical painting viewed from different distances: He can see the details now that make up the full portrait. The way the sun highlights the laugh lines around his eyes, brings out the freckles scattered at random across his lightly sunburnt nose, and brightens his toothy smile beneath a full pair of lips just a little more.

For a moment, they just stare at each other until Dean chirps, “Sam, can you let us off here? We’ll meet you up at the dock in fifteen.”

Surprised by Dean’s boost of confidence, and a wee bit turned on, Cas looks to Sam, who says, smiling, “Sure, no problem. You want your clothes?”

“No, Sam, I was just planning on waltzing around a public lake in the buff.”

“Okay, no need to lose your panties over it.” Sam bites back a grin handing him his things.

“Bitch,” says Dean.

“Jerk,” replies Sam.

Once they’re safely out of earshot of their brothers (and Dean’s slipped into a black tee and jeans), walking somewhere along the grassy area of the lake, Cas asks, “So, did you want to race me because you’re competitive, or because I’m hot?”

Dean casts a glance at him, laughing, before replying, “A little bit of both. But don’t get me wrong, I’m a _very_ competitive person.”

“Right, no, of course,” reassures Cas, blushing. “I for one am not. I thought the whole idea of racing you guys was stupid in the first place; mainly because you’re kind of hot yourself.”

“Mmm, so _that’s_ why you fell,” says Dean, grinning, “you were too busy checking me out.”

Cas scoffs, “Please. I’m a klutz, but I’m not _that_ bad. Besides, I take it you have better balance…” Dean stops to tilt his head at the open statement. “The tattoo on your… backside.”

Dean nods slowly with realization, holding back his embarrassment in the form of a grin. “Right.”

“Who’s Larry?”

“Larry,” Dean says, “is the mechanical bull. I rode him back in February at a bar in Lawrence, my hometown, before I came out here to visit Sam. The owner said I had the best time out of anyone who’s ever been on him.”

“Fair enough. Why on your ass, though?”

“Well, I mean, that’s where I fell,” Dean replies, as if it’s obvious. Cas bursts out laughing. “What?”

“You,” Cas says, looking at him in wonder, then, not realizing how close they are, Cas swallows.

For a moment, they’re lost in staring again, only this time it’s on each other’s lips. “Do you… um… want to see more of me?”

Cas’s heart races at the offer. Luckily, he remembers how to speak: “How much time do we have?”

“Five minutes, give or take.”

“I’ll definitely take it,” Cas says, “you think I’ll be able to ride Larry as long as you did?”

Dean’s mouth parts. Cas is surprised at his own words, too, but something’s telling him he won’t regret them. “I… I guess we’ll just have to find out.”

That’s all it takes for them to sprint to the nearest public restroom.

 

 

**Elsewhere:**

“I think our brothers are…” Gabe pauses, searching for the right words, “beating kielbasas.”

Sam winces, as if he’s been stung between his eyes, “Yeah, thanks for that mental picture.”

“Did I mention I was in a porno once?”


End file.
